Select Local Merchants

During the 70-minute Hahvahd Tour, whip-smart Harvard undergrads lead prospective students and curious tourists alike through 375 years of American History. Starting at the Red Line Harvard stop, tour groups take a stroll past the winding lanes and stoic stone buildings of the nation's oldest college while soaking up knowledge about Harvard's fascinating past and colorful student culture. Visitors
stop for photo ops at famous sites such as the National Lampoon building?the training ground for comedians such as Conan O'Brien?and the John Harvard statue, which commemorates the most famous person named after the university.

In 2006, friends Mike and Courtney—independent researcher for the historical society and ghost tour guide, respectively—drew up a unique business plan to spook Providence locals and tourists alike with fact-based ghost tours. Their combined interests in the paranormal and knack for research led them to pillage the minds of staff members and records at the Providence Historical Society, the public library, and the Rhode Island State Archives for accounts of abnormal and violent events. They dug through old files and microforms of oft-forgotten morbid events—including murders, suicides, and fires—gathering facts to present objective stories about real people. Once they’d crammed their skeptical minds with grim and gloomy facts, the tours were ready to begin.
Today, these truthful and skeptical accounts of paranormal activity chill the spines of tourists and terrified library books as guides lead walking tours, lit by lantern, through centuries-old Providence streets. Since its inception, Providence Ghost Tour has been counted among TripAdvisor's top 10 ghost tours in America, and was featured on an overnight paranormal investigation with Syfy's Ghost Hunters frontmen, Brian Harnois and Keith Johnson.

The Histrionic Academy follows the enduring footprints of America's first steps, bringing to life the iconic men, women, and events that helped forge the United States into existence during the Revolutionary era. Throughout the extended, 90-minute Tour the Freedom Trail walking tour, groups weave across the first 1.2 miles of Boston's Freedom Trail behind the proverbial torches held by guides dressed in colonial garb. Up to 16 of the city's historical landmarks along the tour's route act as links to the past, enabling tour takers to see the actual locations where Paul Revere famously hung out and memorized the horse alphabet.
In addition to Freedom Trail adventures, The Histrionic Academy also swings open its vault of knowledge during school field trips and a variety of other tours. The Plymouth Night tour raises hairs by shuffling visitors through haunted locales beneath the eerie glow of the moon while hunting for ghosts and ghouls in their paranormal hangouts, learning about the dark shadows cast by the city on a hill and the proper safety gear needed for attempting to climb to the moral high ground. The Salem's 1692 tour relives the hysteria of witch hunts by sailing through city streets atop gas-powered brooms.

Fiction pops out from the screen and into full three-dimensional life courtesy of On Location Tours. From a certain bar where "Everybody knows your name" to a Nazi-like soup maker's original spot, New York City and Boston have served as the backdrop to some of pop culture's most iconic sites. Though the cameras have long since left, On Location Tours' goal is to bring sightseers face-to-face with iconic locations seen in shows like Mad Men and Friends and films like Good Will Hunting and American Hustle. So, while spacious tour busses charter passengers through New York and Boston's most famous neighborhoods, local actors wax poetic on the history of these spots and the actors who have cemented their status as American pop-culture landmarks. On Location Tours shuttles more than 100,000 tourists a year, and has been featured in national press such as Entertainment Weekly , The Wall Street Journal, and 60 Minutes.

Freewheeling around historic hallmarks and architecture, Boston By Segway, formerly Boston Gliders, has led more than 100,000 sightseers through Bean Town atop intuitive, easy-to-maneuver segways. Tours, which kick off every half-hour, range from one to two hours; the shorter version trundles down Boston's Harborwalk, and the longer sojourn ventures past historic hotspots including Faneuil Hall and Bunker Hill. To get acquainted with the segway, all upright rollers speed through a half-hour how-not-to-crash course, getting acquainted with the natural, fluid steering and learning how to propel the vehicle forward using a carrot tied to a stick. Armed with digital cameras, the urban sherpas snap shots throughout the tour for purchase afterward, and customers may take their own pictures as long as they briefly hop off the segway.

Wielding a flickering lantern, one of Haunted Boston Ghost Tours? guides leads groups through the streets and alleyways of Beantown, illuminating dark corners to expose any lingering apparitions. Beginning at Central Burial Ground, groups stroll through some of Boston?s most historically haunted areas, including the Boston Athenaeum, Boston Commons, and Freedom Trail, ultimately ending at the Omni Parker Hotel. Along the way, a knowledgeable guide explains the history of the various specters lurking about, as well as the stories behind their demises, which date back to colonial-era Boston. Guides lead these tours every night of the week, rain or shine, for tour takers as young as 6 years old in groups of all sizes, excluding any ex-Ghostbusters.